The present invention relates to solution containers, and more particularly to irrigation solution devices.
In general, the term "irrigation" connotes a procedure for delivering liquid to a body cavity, an indwelling tube, a wound, or other needed area. One of the more common of such procedures constitutes the irrigation of a Foley catheter during catheterization. Thus, it may be necessary to irrigate the catheter through its main lumen in order to remove blockage in the catheter lumen, or it may be desirable for other reasons to inject an irrigation solution through the catheter into the patient's bladder.
The normal procedure for irrigating a Foley catheter is described as follows. First, the junction of the catheter and a drainage tube connected to the proximal end of the catheter is prepped, and the upstream end of the drainage tube is then disconnected from the catheter. Next, a syringe is filled from a container retaining a sterile irrigation solution, and the tip of the syringe is inserted into the catheter lumen at the proximal end of the catheter. The user retains the proximal end portion of the catheter against the syringe tip by the fingers of one hand, while the other hand is utilized to pump the syringe and eject the fluid from the syringe into the catheter lumen. This procedure may be repeated a number of times in order to remove blockage from the catheter lumen or otherwise pump a sufficient volume of fluid into the patient's bladder. The syringe is refilled in the solution container between the successive pumping steps during which the syringe barrel may be placed in the solution itself. Since the irrigation procedure is normally undertaken without the use of sterile gloved hands, it is not uncommon that the physician or nurse carrying out the procedure may contact the syringe barrel with the ungloved hand resulting in contamination to the barrel of the syringe. Thus, when the syringe barrel is repositioned in the irrigation solution, the contaminated syringe barrel in turn contaminates the solution resulting in contaminated solution being drawn into the syringe. Thus, during each filling of the syringe, the solution may become more contaminated by the syringe barrel, and the contaminated solution is then introduced by the syringe into the catheter and the patient's bladder resulting in possible deleterious effects to the patient. Of course, the same problem may be present in other irrigation procedures where the syringe is repetitively filled from a solution container while the syringe barrel is immersed in the irrigation solution.